Much effort has been applied in recent years to the production of fuels and chemicals from biomass and biomass derived material due to their low cost and wide availability. Often agricultural and forestry residues are burned or landfilled. Thus using these materials for fuel production offers an attractive alternative to their disposal. Further, the use of biomass and biomass derived material to make fuels provides reductions in GHG emissions relative to fossil fuels. The extraction of coal or crude oil for use in industry results in the release of carbon into the atmosphere that was previously stored in the earth, and thereby has a net effect of increasing the levels of atmospheric CO2. By contrast, CO2 released from utilizing biomass is relatively benign, given that it simply returns to the atmosphere carbon that was previously removed therefrom by plant photosynthesis.
While the production of transportation or heating fuel from biomass or biomass derived material has received significant attention in recent years, there are also developing opportunities for making other products from these materials. The production of co-products with fuels can allow for reductions in the net production cost of biofuels and can diversify revenue sources from fuel production operations.
One potential co-product of fuel production from biomass is cresylic acid. Cresylic acid is a chemical product that can have significant commercial value. Cresylic acid comprises ortho-cresol (o-cresol), meta-cresol (m-cresol) and/or para-cresol (p-cresol) and has many industrial uses. Mixed cresols can be used as disinfectants, preservatives and wire enamel solvents, o-cresol finds use as a solvent, disinfectant and chemical intermediate, m-cresol can be used to produce herbicides, insecticides, antioxidants and explosives, while p-cresol is used in the formulation of antioxidants and in the fragrance and dye industries. Cresylic acid is typically produced from coal or oil.
Despite the advantages of using biomass or biomass derived material, coal and crude oil are still the predominant feedstocks in use today to make chemicals or fuels. While biomass is known to have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the fossil fuel industry, its use as a starting material for producing fuels has proven to be difficult in practice due to economic and technical challenges. There is thus a need in the art to overcome some of the challenges of making biomass derived fuels at lower net cost. The generation of co-products from fuel production can offer such benefit.